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Lt. Ernest Anders Erickson
Air Corps 1942 - 1945

Click to view Lt. Ernest Anders Erickson's complete thirty five 
mission list and twelve B-17 Flying Fortresses flown between
March 27th thru August 26th, 1944 out of Horham Airfield, England.


A photograph of my father, Ernest Anders Erickson when he was a Cadet preparing for a flight with an instructor during his Flight Training for the Air Corps. He is in the front seat of a P-19 on White Field adjacent to Curtis Field in Brady, Texas in April of 1943. You can almost feel the blue of the sky and the white clouds he would soon be flying through over the Texas flatlands.

After the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the need for pilots, bombardiers, and navigators resulted in the rapid expansion of the United States Army Air Corps and the Advanced Flying School at Kelly Airfield. Night flying was added to the school program and the amount of training time doubled.

Between January 1939 and March 1943, over 6,800 men graduated from Kelly’s Advanced Flying School and approximately 1,700 additional pilots graduated from various other courses in the Instructor's School. In order to house the rapidly growing pilot trainee population, a "tent city" sprang up as it had in World War I.

By the summer of 1942, there were four flying fields - Duncan, Kelly, Brooks and Stinson and flying became dangerous. Consequently, in March 1943, Kelly and Duncan were reunited under the name of Kelly Field.

Besides supplying the Air Corps with pilots, bombardiers and navigators, Kelly ground crew workers overhauled, repaired, modified aircraft and their engines.

My father eventually graduated from Blackland Airfield and received his wings and became a B-17 pilot. He would be stationed at Horham Airfield in England with the 95th Bomb Group. He flew thirty five missions over German occupied Europe with the 334th Squadron.


Click to view a High Resolution image

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